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Sunday, March 18, 2012

I can well remember the excitement both of my children had, in anticipating their first days of school. With great fondness and humor, I can recall my daughter, reporting back to me after her first week of preschool with disdain, because she wasn't assigned any homework and my son's eager face, as he presented a skills workbook to explore together.

Those days are long gone now, with my daughter a high school junior and my son in his last year of elementary school. Upon arriving home from school, their eyes are not lit with joy when I query about their homework assignments. In fact, quite the opposite seems to be true.

Although my daughter has had a fairly easy time, adjusting to the increasing demands of her classes, my son's experience has been a different case altogether. While his comprehension skills are quite high, a short term memory deficit makes much of his classroom learning an extra challenge. Finding ways to help him engage enthusiastically in educational subjects, as well finding flexible lessons and opportunities for repetition.are key to his success as a student

Both he and I were quite excited to have been provided an opportunity to explore Dimension U, an online site specifically designed to engage and challenge students in core curriculum subjects, strengthening their skills in a fun, comprehensive way, while providing multiple levels of encouragement to succeed and advance.

Our mission is to engage and motivate students so that they choose to devote more of their time to even the most difficult subjects. Standards-based, research driven and proven to delight, these games offer all of the action adventure fun associated with commercial video games, integrated with truly effective educational content.

Dimension U offers programs that can be utilized in classroom, as well as online from home. Students are able to set up their own personalized profile, including selection from numerous avatars and interact and challenge each other through the program, as well as play on their own. The educational games are designed to function similarly to a video game, a format certainly appealing to any child. Parents, students and educators will certainly appreciate the ability to vary the grade level of any particular subjects tasks, accommodating the varying needs of each child.

Beyond the natural enticement of conquering a given level, parents are also welcome to enroll in a unique U Gain program through Dimension U, offering an additional allowance incentive to their child for completing a certain number of tasks through the program.

Our Take ~
My son tested two mathematics games on Dimenion U: Gadget Works and Meltdown. As a parent, I appreciated that both games, presented in a fun and excited video game format were flexible, allowing my son to work at the best level for his needs, while offering opportunity for him to advance to more challenging work. Beyond the level of challenge, we were able to select from a variety of specialized math skills, enabling us to focus on the specific areas in which he needed additional support and practice.

Although my son enjoyed both games, his level of engagement was significantly greater when exploring the Meltdown game. In particular, he loved the ability to "learn his way" to earning more gadget and gizmos to use in game play. While he did think that Meltdown was a more action packed game and better suited for older students, like him, he felt that Gadget Works was appropriate for students of any age.

This Mom is all for any program that increases the fun factor of learning and has the ability to engage students, encouraging their participation and success; Dimension U seems to do just that! The online program offers opportunity to both challenge a student individually, as well as promoting positive competition in a classroom setting or through the Dimension U Tournament site. Dimension U is a site certainly worth exploring with your student!

I participated in a campaign on behalf of Mom Central Consulting for DimensionU. I received a free trial of DimensionU to facilitate my review and a promotional item as a thank-you for participating. The opinions and experiences above are both honest and my own. Images and information sourced from various Dimension U sites.

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As a math atheist I am of no real help when if comes to homework or math skills. I'm curious about this, sinc my boys are both into their games...Thank you for the introduction, I will be exploring it further.